| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Russia Clears Kabul Debt
Russia wrote off 90 percent of Afghanistan's debt on credits granted it by the USSR yesterday and agreed to restructure the remaining 10 percent for payment in the next 23 years. Russian Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin and Afghan Finance Minister Anwar ul-Haq Ahady signed the package of documents in Moscow. Most of the debt resulted from arms deliveries made to the regimes of Babrak Karmal and his successor Mohammed Najibullah and date from 1979 to 1991.
The Afghan credits had been granted in rubles with an official exchange rate of 67 kopecks/$. That unrealistic rate caused certain problems. After their talks, the Russian finance minister claimed that the remaining Afghan debt is $1 billion, while the Afghan minister insisted that it is $730 million. The ministers did agree that the question was academic; the remaining Afghan debt will be forgiven under the IMF and World Bank's Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative. Ahady promised to open the way for greater Russian investment in Afghanistan. The first sign of this was Tekhnopromexport's win in a $30-million tender to reconstruct an Afghan hydroelectric plant.
Since the agreement with Afghanistan was concluded within the framework of the Paris Club, Russia hopes to take advantage of the precedent it set. Under Paris Club rules, debt solutions have to be identical for all countries. Thus, Russia hopes to reach an agreement on Iraq's $10-billion debt to it, which also resulted from arms deliveries, and gain the opportunity to invest in the Iraqi oil and gas industry.
The other countries with large Soviet-era debts to Russia are Cuba and North Korea. Those debts are less promising, however. Those countries refuse to recognize Paris Club rules. Negotiations on Cuba's debt were frozen last year. Debt negotiations with North Korea are to begin in September of this year.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 07, 2007
|
|
|
